Greek theatre is based on religious and political performance with prestige playwrights. The roles are always played by men who wear masks and costumes and the performance were always outdoors. Greek theatre has had comedy and tragedy where comedies the heroes are ironic and disengaged to the situations. With the tragedy, heroes often respond with emotions such as pride, rage, lust, envy or grief. This essay will focus on the tragedy side of Greek theatre. Aristotle says that tragedy “is not the imitations of persons but of actions and of life.” (Butcher 1961). Here “imitation” meaning ‘mimesis’-poet creating a image out of nothing, representing reality itself giving it form and meaning. Furthermore the actions are the mimesis of the poet that is serious in context to pity, fear, moral, social and physiological senses directing to pathases. Aristotle is looking at the art of tragedy which is the making of the play that symbolizes an action. He states that tragedy is a form of action that displays visions and inspirations that leads the character into action such as singing.
Moreover he talks about action that is from two natural causes – character and thought (Butcher 1961). It is the changing circumstances of life that the character response in such a way to use his thoughts to seek or avoid situations. Aristotle emphasis action (praxis) is not a deed, event or physical activity rather the motivation that arouse from the deed - the thought and character that makes the action.
Tragedy depends on the dramatic performance (enactment) and not on the author telling the story (narrative). According to Aristotle tragedy stimulates the emotions and then purifies or purges it down, it is never created. On the other hand the tragic hero ...
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... pathos –the suffering is seen in both the plays where destruction is shown through the deaths, a painful act that grabs the audience attention and classifies the character as the tragic hero. As in Aristotle’s poetics it is deep nature and imitation is an instinct of nature. Poetry imitates life in a number of ways, through the character, emotions, actions and everyday objects (Butcher 1961).
Bibliography
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Willams, Simon. "The Tragic actor and Shakespeare." In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage, by Stanely Wells & Sarah Stanton, 118-136. Cambridge: University Press, 2002.
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If we seek to justify Shakespeare's King Lear as a tragedy by applying Arthur Miller's theory of tragedy and the tragic hero, then we might find Lear is not a great tragedy, and the character Lear is hardly passable for a tragic hero. However, if we take Aristotle's theory of tragedy to examine this play, it would fit much more neatly and easily. This is not because Aristotle prescribes using nobility for the subject of a tragedy, but, more importantly, because he emphasizes the purpose of tragedy -- to arouse pity and fear in the audience, and thus purge them of such emotions.
Aristotle also says that in order to have the finest tragedy the plot must be complex and must imitate actions arousing fear and pity - the distinctive function of this sort of imitation. He reasons that there are three kinds of plot to avoid. First, to be avoided is that a good man must not be seen going from happiness to misery because it is repellant. Second, a bad man cannot go from misery to happiness because it does not appeal to our human...
In Euripides’ tragic play, Medea, the playwright creates an undercurrent of chaos in the play upon asserting that, “the world’s great order [is being] reversed.” (Lawall, 651, line 408). The manipulation of the spectators’ emotions, which instills in them a sentiment of drama, is relative to this undertone of disorder, as opposed to being absolute. The central thesis suggests drama in the play as relative to the method of theatrical production. The three concepts of set, costumes, and acting, are tools which accentuate the drama of the play. Respectively, these three notions represent the appearance of drama on political, social, and moral levels. This essay will compare three different productions of Euripides’ melodrama, namely, the play as presented by the Jazzart Dance Theatre¹; the Culver City (California) Public Theatre²; and finally, the original ancient Greek production of the play, as it was scripted by Euripides.
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Most readers are aware of the many famous deaths or acts of death within the Shakespearean plays. And when the main characters die in Shakespeare’s plays, indeed, the readers would categorize the play as a tragedy. The problem with any tragedy definition is that most tragic plays do not define the tragedy conditions explained or outlined by Aristotle. According to Telford (1961), a tragedy is a literary work that describes the downfall of an honorable, main character who is involved on historically or socially significant events. The main character, or tragic hero, has a tragic fault, the quality that leads to his or her own destruction. In reading Aristotle’s point of view, a tragedy play is when the main character(s) are under enormous pressure and are incapable to see the dignities in human life, which Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy is based on Oedipus the King. Shakespeare had a different view of tragedy. In fact, Shakespeare believed tragedy is when the hero is simply and solely destroyed. Golden (1984) argued the structure of Shakespearean tragedy would be that individual characters revolved around some pain and misery.
Shakespeare, William. The Norton Shakespeare. Edited Stephen Greenblatt et al. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Kennedy, X. J., & Gioia, D. (2010). Literature an introduction to fiction, poetry, drama and
Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare in the theatre: an anthology of criticism. Oxford University Press, USA, 2000.
A tragic play is a combination of dramatic scenes that act out a tragic event and usually labors unhappy endings. The play would usually portray the downfall of the main character. According to Aristotle, “Every Tragedy therefore must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Character, Diction, Thought, Spectacle, Song.” Based on Aristotle’s definition, Oedipus and Hamlet are a good examples tragedy. They both have been developed with a strong Plot and Characters. According to Aristotle, Plot is considered to be “the soul of tragedy” and very important in a play. Aristotle also implies Character to be second in line when it comes to developing a successful tragedy.
Hunter, G.K. "Shakespeare and the Traditions of Tragedy." Wells, Stanley, ed., pp. 113-117. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge:
In Aristotle’s book, Poetics, he defines tragedy as, “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and possessing magnitude; in embellished language, each kind of which is used separately in the different parts; in the mode of action and not narrated; and effecting through pity and fear” (Aristotle 1149). Tragedy creates a cause and effect chain of actions that clearly gives the audience ideas of possible events. The six parts to Aristotle’s elements of tragedy are: Plot, character, language, thought, spectacle, and melody. According to Aristotle, the most important element is the plot. Aristotle writes in Poetics that, “It is not for the purpose of presenting their characters that the agents engage in action, but rather it is for the sake of their actions that they take on the characters they have” (Aristotle 1150). Plots should have a beginning, middle, and end that have a unity of actions throughout the play making it complete. In addition, the plot should be complex making it an effective tragedy. The second most important element is character. Characters...
The tragedy was a large part of people's lives in ancient Greece. Tragedies became prominent long before Christ was born. A tragedy, or goat-song, usually were seen during festivals in ancient Greek times. Tragedies gradually increased in seriousness until they were given utmost importance. Greek tragedies began at a festival in honor of a god, there were three great tragic authors, and all tragedies include a tragic situation.
In 350 B.C.E., a great philosopher wrote out what he thought was the definition of a tragedy. As translated by S.H. Butcher, Aristotle wrote; “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions. . . . Every Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts determine its quality—namely, Plot, Characters, Thought, Diction, Spectacle, Melody. (http://www.cnr.edu/home/bmcmanus/poetics.html)” Later in history, William Shakespeare wrote tragedies that epitomized Aristotle’s outline of a tragedy. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one such tragedy.
Aristotle, as a world famous philosopher, gives a clear definition of tragedy in his influential masterpiece Poetics, a well-known Greek technical handbook of literary criticism. In Aristotle’s words, a tragedy is “an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play, the form of action, not of narrative, through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions”(Aristotle 12). He believes that a tragedy should be serious and complete in appropriate and pleasurable language; the plot of tragedy should be dramatic, whose incidents will arouse pity and fear, and finally accomplish a catharsis of emotions. His theory of tragedy has been exerting great influence on the tragedy theories in the past two thousand years. Shakespeare, as the greatest dramatist in western literature, also learnt from this theory. Hamlet is one of the most influential tragedies written by Shakespeare. The play vividly focuses on the theme of moral corruption, treachery, revenge, and incest. This essay will first analyze Shakespeare’s Hamlet under Aristotle’s tragedy theory. Then this essay will express personal opinion on Aristotle’s tragedy theory. The purpose of this essay is to help the reader better understand Aristotle’s theory of tragedy and Shakespeare’s masterpiece Hamlet.